Honest Las Vegas cabbie gets $10,000 reward for returning cash

Gerardo Gamboa, a Las Vegas taxi driver, returned $300,000 to a passenger.

By Daniella Silva, NBC News

A Vegas taxi driver who returned $300,000 left by a big-time poker player in his cab was rewarded for the good deed with $10,000 cash of his own.

Yellow Checker Star Cab Company CEO Bill Shranko said on Friday that the poker player, whom Las Vegas police would not identify, called to inquire about the driver who found his $300,000 and returned it.

Shranko said Gerardo Gamboa, the Yellow Checker Star cab driver with more than 13 years of experience in Las Vegas, was then rewarded with $10,000 by the caller.

The poker player had left a brown suit case stuffed with cash behind when Gamboa dropped him off on Monday at the $500-a-night Palms Place hotel and spa.

The doorman at Gamboa’s next stop alerted him to the bag, and when the taxi driver opened it he pulled out about $50,000 in cash.

"It's all hundred-dollar bills. I said: 'Oh, my God! That's a lot of money in here!'" he said. "So I put back the money, and I called dispatch right away."

Gamboa said he immediately called his dispatcher and asked his next passenger to witness that he had not taken anything.

"Why? Because it [doesn't] belong to me," the honest driver told NBC affiliate KSNV on Tuesday. "I just want to do the right thing."

The taxi company has also rewarded Gamboa with the title Driver of the Year, $1,000 and a dinner for two at a pricey restaurant, The Las Vegas Sun reported.